Shima no miya ue no ike naru hanachidori arabi na yuki so kimi masazu tomo

島の宮上の池なる放ち鳥
荒びな行きそ君座さずとも

Roma-ji: Shima no miya ue no ike naru hanachidori arabi na yuki so kimi masazu tomo
English Translation: At the Shima Palace,
you birds set free upon
the upper pond—
do not grow wild and fly away,
though our lord is here no more.
Meaning: You birds set free on the upper pond of the Shima Palace, do not grow wild and fly away, even though our lord is here no more.
Commentary: Book Two Elegies 172

Headnote continued from the preceding poem: "Twenty-three poems composed in grief by the attendants of the Prince's palace"
Addressing the birds set free on the pond of the Shima Palace, the speaker begs them not to grow wild and fly off now that the prince is gone, wishing the palace to remain as it was.
According to the headnote, these are twenty-three poems composed in grief by the attendants who served in Prince Kusakabe's palace. A left note, citing the Nihon shoki, records that the prince died in the fourth month of the third year of Empress Jitō's reign (689). The sequence takes up, scene by scene, the laments of the attendants: the garden and ponds of the Shima Palace bereft of their master, and the night watches they kept on the hills of Mayumi and Sada where the prince lay in state. This is the second poem of the sequence.
The authors were the attendants who served in Prince Kusakabe's palace, and their individual names have not come down to us. Toneri were officials who served close to the Emperor and members of the imperial family as guards and aides. One theory holds that Kakinomoto no Hitomaro composed the poems in the attendants' voice, but this is not settled.

The first line, "shima no miya," is Prince Kusakabe's palace; the poem begins with the same line as 170 by Kakinomoto no Hitomaro in this book.
The second line, "ue no ike naru," means "on the upper pond" of the Shima Palace.
The third line, "hanachidori," means birds kept free. In 170 they are birds that long for people and will not dive, forming a pair with the birds here.
In the fourth line, "arabi na yuki so," arabu means to grow wild and shun people, and na ... so expresses prohibition. The tenth poem of the sequence, 180, uses the same phrase.
In the final line, "kimi masazu tomo," masu is an honorific for "to be": even though our lord is not here. By inversion, the cause of grief comes last.
Source: Manyoshu
Prev Poem: Takaterasu waga hi no miko no yorozuyo ni kuni shirasamashi shima no miya wa mo
Next Poem: Takaterasu waga hi no miko no imashiseba shima no mikado wa arezu aramashi o